InterAction automatically generates activities when users take certain actions. InterAction uses specific activity types for these generated activities.
See the following topics:
Activities Generated When Users Edit Data
InterAction automatically generates activities when users make changes to contact information. For example, if a contact’s phone changes, an activity is created to record this event. These activities are particularly useful on the My Alerts page, as they alert other InterAction users when the contacts they care about change.
If your organization uses reminders, activities are also created automatically when InterAction sends users their reminder messages.
Activities Displayed as Alerts
[A] These activities were automatically generated when users edited the contacts.
[B] These activities were entered by users manually.
Types Used for the Generated Activities
When generating activities in response to these data changes, InterAction uses special out-of-the-box activity types. These types are intended only for these generated events. For example, in the figure below, the change in phone number generated an activity with the special Phone Extension Change activity type. The Phone Extension Change type should not be used for any other kinds of activities.
These out-of-the-box types are configured with the following settings:
- They always are displayed to end users. The Display on the Customize Watch List / Alerts page and the Reporting Activity Options filter option is selected by default.
- Since users should not manually create activities with these types, you cannot change them to be available when creating or editing activities.
- You cannot delete or hide (inactivate) these types.
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These types are configured to automatically expire after two weeks. This means any activities generated with these types are purged from InterAction two weeks after they are created.
If necessary, you can change the expiration date. For more information, see “Set the Expiration Options for an Activity Type” in Automatically Removing Activities.
Never change the meaning of these activity types. Activities are automatically created using these types when contact data is changed. Changing the meaning of these types may cause confusion for users.
Note that users cannot edit the generated activities that use these types. The activities can only be deleted by the System Administrator User or a user in the Data Admins group.
Out-of-the-Box Type for Generated Activities
The following table summarizes the out-of-the-box activity types used for the generated activities.
Activity Types Used for Generated Activities
| ID | Default Name | Default Activity Group |
|---|---|---|
| 1001 | Person Name Change | Name / Title Change |
| 1002 | Person Goes By Name Change | Name / Title Change |
| 1003 | Person Title Change | Name / Title Change |
| 1004 | Person Title Clear | Name / Title Change |
| 1005 | Company Name Change | Name / Title Change |
| 1006 | Company AKA Name Change | Name / Title Change |
| 2001 | Employment Added | Employment Change |
| 2002 | Employee Added | Employment Change |
| 2003 | Employment Update | Employment Change |
| 2004 | Employee Update | Employment Change |
| 2005 | Employment Change | Employment Change |
| 2009 | Person Company Name Change | Employment Change |
| 3001 | Phone Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3002 | Fax Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3003 | Pager Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3004 | Computer Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3005 | Other Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3006 | Mobile Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3007 | Assistant Number Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3008 | Phone Extension Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3051 | Street Address Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3054 | City Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3055 | State Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3056 | Postal Code Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3057 | Country Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3058 | Entire Address Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3081 | Email Address Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3082 | Web Site Address Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3083 | FTP Site Address Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 3084 | Other Electronic Address Change | Phone / Address Change |
| 4001 | Reminded About | Reminder Delivery Notification |
Filtering Activity Types in the Manage Activity & Appointment Types Dialog Box
When managing your list of activity types, the out-of-the-box types used for the generated activities can add “noise.” Since you rarely need to edit their settings, it is helpful to filter them out of the view.
Do the following:
- In the Manage Activity & Appointment Types dialog box, choose Filter.
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Under Status, select All types that are available during add/edit and choose OK.
Note that there are other Status filter options available on the dialog box.
System Activities
Activities are automatically generated when certain data quality actions take place. This includes Duplicate Merge, Association Cleanup, and other data quality tools.
If one of these tools removes information from a contact, the data is retained on an activity. For example, if you merge two contacts and they have conflicting information in an additional field, the field value is saved in an activity.
By default, these tools create activities using the out-of-the-box System type. This type is set to be completely hidden from end users since they don’t normally need to use the type in any way.
You can create additional types to use for data quality features and set these using InterAction Administrator.